


meridian/oblivion

by hydraxx



Series: wordplay [6]
Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Canon Era, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-27 08:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7611283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydraxx/pseuds/hydraxx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Certain memories rise to the surface in reviewing a life. They're not always the most logical.</p>
<p>But who are we to classify endings, beginnings, or anything in between?</p>
            </blockquote>





	meridian/oblivion

**Author's Note:**

> meridian (adj): of the period of greatest splendor, vigor, etc.
> 
> oblivion (n): the state of being forgotten.
> 
> August 1782.

Laurens was falling.

 

* * *

 

_Deep October sky wheeled above, painted with a glittering array of stars. Hamilton lay warm beside him in the grass. Their fingers were tangled between them, a casual grounding touch to balance out the eons of oblivion spinning overhead._

_“Have you any idea of the time?” Laurens yawned and tucked one arm behind his head. They’d been out in this field all night watching the heavens rise and fall. A few lazy kisses had been exchanged, more to savor their proximity than anything, but for now they were content to bask in the peaceful moonlight._

_“Does it matter?” Hamilton breathed. His upward-gazing eyes were framed with dark circles, but still they sparkled, reflecting eternity as if they didn’t know they were mortal. John was knocked a little breathless at the sight of his beautiful Alexander._

_He murmured, “No, I suppose not.” His gaze reverently traced Alexander’s profile before climbing again to the sky._

_They pondered the unfathomable depths of the celestial dome in comfortable silence. The horizon was barely beginning to glow with dawn._

_Hamilton sounded almost hoarse when he spoke again. “John,” he said, “You know I still love you, don’t you?”_

_The sudden strangling of his heart prevented Laurens from answering for a moment. When he did, he tried to keep the pain of lingering heartbreak from his voice.“You have a wife. And a child, soon enough. Your obligations are to them, not me.”_

_“John—”_

_Laurens closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. He was used to Hamilton’s excuses and explanations; they’d been playing this frustrating game for nearly two years, since Alexander first met Elizabeth Schuyler and dove headlong into her orbit._

_They’d had precious few meetings in the intervening months, and John stifled the keening of his heart every time in favor of enjoying their limited moments together. He knew something between them had cracked when Alexander learned that John had hidden the existence of his own wife and child, yet he clung to their tenuous filamentary connection, hoping against hope that it might somehow save him. With every moment John felt himself hurtling toward some kind of end, and though he couldn’t make out its nature, he didn’t particularly care. He’d always suspected that his star would burn out in a blaze._

_All this knowledge still wasn’t enough to lessen the ache in his chest._

_“I’m sorry,” Hamilton whispered._

_The words were delivered in a broken sob that made John frown. This was not their usual dance of hedged declarations and wistful intentions._

_“I love you, John, so much, and I am so sorry.”_

_When he turned to look at Hamilton, Laurens was met with silver tears coursing tracks down his lover’s temples._

_“I have to leave in the morning. I’m returning to Albany.”_

_“You never—you didn’t tell me,” John whispered, stricken. “Why didn’t you tell me?”_

_“I…” Hamilton shook his head, just barely, and opened his eyes again, full of starlight and salty tears. “It felt. Too final. The war is over, John, and I can’t stay in the army forever. But you’re not coming—you’ll be in the South still, and—I know”—he waved one hand absently—“I know it’s in good service, but my God, John, I will miss you.” He turned his pleading gaze on Laurens. “Please, my love, take care in these last days. We need your mind in the new republic._ I _need you.”_

_“Oh, dear boy.” John shifted, reaching, to cover Hamilton in a tight embrace. “Oh, my dear.” He pressed a kiss to Alexander’s dark hair and hoped it might disguise his own falling tears. “I swear it. For you.”_

_When he stared into the sky with Alexander in his arms, the fading stars beckoned, and Laurens felt like he was falling._

 

* * *

 

Laurens was falling.

His horse had already bolted by the time he realized he’d been unseated. Pinpricks of burning cold settled into his chest, taking root and spreading like malicious weeds.

The hard ground received him, ungrateful for the gift of his body and blood.

 

* * *

 

_The hard ground received him, indifferent to his surprise. His horse was down, shot from under him, while Continental troops swarmed haphazardly around. Lee had bungled the attack beyond repair._

_“Laurens!” Hamilton hauled him to his feet, face grim._

_“Why aren’t you mounted?” John coughed to clear the dust from his throat. “You were supposed to be with Washington.”_

_“Same as you,” Hamilton said, “unhorsed. No, I’m fine,” he protested when concern creased John’s brow. “Here, drink.”_

_Gulping hastily from Alexander’s canteen, John tried to appraise the scene around them. The field was chaos. Continentals still formed a sloppy retreat toward the main force, pursued doggedly by British soldiers despite the deadly heat of June._

_“Where’s Lafayette?”_

_“He’s commanding what’s left of Lee’s troops.” Hamilton took his canteen back and slung it across one shoulder. “Come on. We should get back to Washington.”_

_“Yes, of course.” John retrieved his sword from the ground nearby, wiped it on his breeches, and sheathed it. He’d have to clean it more thoroughly later. For now, their General needed every man with all haste._

_Bodies littered the field, some still groaning, many devoid of any apparent wound. John clutched his canteen a little tighter against his hip. As a southerner and a one-time student of medicine, he knew the ravages of heatstroke all too well._

_So did General Washington, who greeted Laurens and Hamilton with livid demeanor and snapped instructions to join the foot troops. They scurried into place._

_“Lee is done for,” Hamilton muttered. John nodded agreement. Internally he fumed over this blatant disrespect for their commander; outwardly all he could do was join the line behind Washington and throw all his energies into seeing the General’s orders executed._

_His father’s old words twined around his heart like malicious weeds._ “A gentleman is nothing without honor, Jack. We are always bound to defend it by the laws of decency and society. Never let a slight go unanswered.” _And he hadn’t, not in twenty-three years, nor did he intend to start today. He was just as bound by loyalty as by convention when it came to his military family._

_“Lee’s going to pay for this,” he growled, low enough that only Alexander could hear._

_Hamilton turned his head slightly. John caught the edge of a bitter smile on his lips. “If you have anything to say in the matter, Laurens, I have no doubt he’ll get his due.”_

_They clasped hands roughly just as a roar went up from the front of the line. Artillery blasts suddenly peppered the redcoat ranks. John readied his musket and bayonet, staring sternly toward the British. If Lee was going to prove a disappointment to their entire cause, Laurens would gladly take on the challenge of redemption single-handed. American honor was not to be treated lightly._

_The weeds in his breast wove their stranglehold a little tighter._

 

* * *

 

His breaths were shallow and labored now, cruelly restricted. He couldn’t fill his lungs.

 

* * *

 

_He panted up the hill, wishing he could shed his fine wool coat but knowing it would be easily lost during the adventures of the afternoon. As the eldest son he was responsible not only for his brothers’ welfare, but also for his own gentlemanly appearance, and John was ever conscious of those charges._

_Still, at fifteen, it was hard not to grin at the capers that Harry and Jemmy pulled and to romp after them with a yell. They raced ahead of him on chubby childish legs. He laughed despite his labored breaths._

_“Jack, Jack!” Jemmy shrieked, stumbling down from the summit. Even dirtied, his round face shone with admiration for his older brother. “Take my horse!”_

_John graciously accepted the knobbly stick that the boy thrust toward him and indulgently cried, “What a noble steed! Thank you, Jem, for the favor of his service. He will carry me valiantly into battle!” With that he galloped off toward Harry, who wielded a stick of his own as a sword._

_“Halt, villain!” Harry’s voice was as commanding as he could make it at six years old. He brandished his weapon at John._

_“Villain?!” John shouted. “I am no villain, you rascal! I am the Honorable Sir Jack of Mepkin.”_

_“You can’t be Mepkin,_ I’m _Mepkin,” Harry pouted, letting his stick droop toward the ground with the corners of his mouth._

_Thinking fast, John countered, “Aha, so you were until my forces overran it. Now_ I’m _the knight of Mepkin!”_

_“You’re not—hon’ble!” Harry piped, eagerly latching on to the new story. “VILLAIN! Evil Sir Jack! Sir Harry fights for Mepkin!”_

_“Raaaaah!” With a dramatic yell John charged his brother, hiding his smile behind a theatrical grimace. He fell groaning at the first swipe of Harry’s makeshift sword and writhed on the grass._

_“Slain! Slain!” he wailed. “Alas, the wound is mortal, and Sir Harry is proven the better man—” This speech was cut short when Jemmy flopped onto his chest and knocked the breath from his lungs._

_“Oof, Jem, careful,” John said. Jemmy giggled as only a carefree four-year-old could._

_Harry piled on top of his brothers with a shrill laugh. “Jack!” he gasped. “When you grow up will you be a knight? Are there still knights?”_

_“There are some, but not like in stories,” John explained. “Besides, I want to be a doctor.”_

_“That’s no fun,” Harry said, pulling a face. “Doctors don’t get to fight.”_

_“Well, some of them do.” John resigned himself to being crushed under the weight of roughly eighty pounds of young Laurens. “There are doctors who serve in the army—”_

_“Doctors are_ old _!” Jemmy yelled. “Old Jack, old Jack!” He bounced in time to his chant, driving one elbow into John’s ribs with every movement. In retaliation John seized his brother around the waist and tickled him to the ground. Jemmy squirmed and screeched, but a delighted laugh bubbled through his protests. Harry finally dragged John off, pushing at his shoulders with little fists, then seized Jemmy’s hand to escape down the hill toward the distant plantation house. John watched them go with a blazing star of affection pulsing in his heart._

_He never wanted to grow old._

 

* * *

 

Deep sky wheeled above, painted with a glittering array of stars that were only just beginning to fade into dawn. The earth was cool and damp beneath him.

He closed his eyes, sighed one last lingering breath.

Laurens was falling, and all was still.

**Author's Note:**

> I've basically been listening to Bastille's album "All This Bad Blood" for a week straight. It's been rough, y'all.


End file.
